Bonus point win for Cobras

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Cape Town - Despite a valiant career best performance by Vaughn van Jaarsveld, the Cape Cobras romped home to a bonus point victory by 55 runs against the Dolphins at Sahara Park Newlands on Friday evening.

it was a patchy batting effort, but half-centuries by Richard Levi and Dane Vilas gave the Cape Cobras something to defend, and a magnificent opening spell by Johann Louw knocked over the top order and the visitors were never able to recover fully. The win took the Cobras into second place on the log.

Levi played a solid innings after the Cape Cobras won the toss and chose to bat first. His 55 came off 62 balls with 7 fours, and was his third successive half-century. He did profit from a few edges over the slips, but with the pitch not the flattest Newlands track, he curbed his natural aggressive instincts to some degree to concentrate on placement rather than extravagant shots.

Former Western Province player Craig Alexander troubled the top order, dismissing Andrew Puttick and Stiaan van Zyl within the space of five balls. After a telling opening spell, a hamstring injury in the field put an end to his match.

Levi and Vilas put on 52 for the third wicket off 73 balls before Levi failed to clear David Miller on the long-on boundary, and Yaseen Vallie was run out by a sharp throw from the covers by Imraan Khan. Captain Justin Ontong assisted Vilas with another partnership of 52 off 51 balls, and then Justin Kemp joined Vilas in a partnership of 40.

The Cape Cobras were eyeing a total in the vicinity of 250 but, when Vilas also holed out to long-on, the rest of the innings folded tamely leaving the Cape Cobras with a sub-par score of 229. Vilas had the top score for the Cape Cobras, his highest Momentum One Day Cup score of 84 coming off 116 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes.

Apart from Alexander, Prenelan Subrayen had a useful return of 2-42.

It soon became clear that it was not going to be an easy chase for the Dolphins. Charl Langeveldt was impressive, but Johann Louw swung the ball both ways. It was no surprise when Louw's second delivery found the edge of Cameron Delport's bat, and Daryn Smit followed in similar fashion in Louw's next over. Langeveldt chipped in with Khan's wicket, bowled by a superb yorker, and, when Louw ended the eighth over by having David Miller caught behind, the Dolphins were struggling at 14/4.

Van Jaarsveld was not prepared to give up so easily. Cody Chetty hung in with him, playing cautiously while Van Jaarsveld hit the boundaries and found the gaps, aided by some sloppy ground fielding by the Cape Cobras. Their partnership amounted to 103 off 140 balls, and there was hope with the score reaching 117 in the 32nd over and the required rate still at around five to the over.

With Lizaad Williams and Alistair Gray leaking runs, Ontong brought himself on and bowled a few tight overs, eventually inducing Chetty into a mistimed drive which looped up to Gray at mid-off. Van Jaarsveld was unable to find another partner.

The Dolphins had a long tail, compounded by the injury to Alexander which prevented him from batting and, when Van Jaarsveld eventually made a mistake to be caught at long-off, it was all over, leaving the Dolphins just 10 runs shy of saving the bonus point.

Van Jaarsveld was nothing less than magnificent. He kept his strike rate at close to 100 for most of his innings, and was rewarded with his third List A century, and highest score. The performance earned him the man of the match award, a rare honour for a player on the losing team.

Louw was not able to follow up on his magnificent opening spell of 6-0-10-3, but his eventual return of 3-24 in eight overs was nothing to be ashamed of. Langeveldt picked up two wickets, but the bowler to catch the eye was Williams. He went for 26 in a four-over opening spell, but did beat the bat on a few occasions.

Ontong took the gamble of re-introducing the young Boland quickie at a crucial stage of the innings. His pace and movement non-plussed the lower order, and his second spell of 4-1-9-1 snuffed out any hope of a recovery.

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